Books

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	From the serious to the ridiculous and the whimsical to the lyrical, tucked away in these pages you can find essays and poetry to enlighten and entertain, to make you chuckle…or perhaps even weep. What would you do if you thought the Queen of England might drop in for tea, or have you ever whimsically capered? How many geese in a flock? Or is it a gaggle of geese? Happy songs and sad songs, here is an entertaining book for every mood to read again and again.
	A mysterious bog that eventually spits things out, killer bees and the women who tend them, a little boy chasing 'fiery flies' and 'foxes on fire' in the woods one dusky evening …what do all of these have in common? You will meet them all in her new book  "The Legends of Nevermore County." See what the people in these stories have to say about this whole thing in the "Nevermore County Gazette"
	The Secret of the Mothers - A Novel When a child is discovered living with Bonobo Apes in the jungles of the Congo, no one knows her secrets. Delilah's mother escapes from a German compound in Africa by killing the scientist responsible for her state of pregnancy. Ten years later, Delilah becomes a ward of the Brighton Foundation where she is first introduced to human behavior by a religious fanatic; later she is transferred from that facility and learns and confronts the evils of the foundation's head and her secrets of human experimentation and genetic manipulation emerge. The question remains: Who is Delilah Cross? Available in Hardcover and Paperback
	Adelle Bradford was a child of the dustbowl. "I have seen, heard, and fully experienced so very many things that are now but yesterday's dreams, dry and musty historical facts lost in the pages of dusty old books, or slowly fading away in musty old photo albums full of yesterday's forgotten people. "Although my first few years of life didn't start out that way, I became a Great Depression child in the early thirties. I lived in tent cities and shanty towns erected by men too proud to 'go on the dole'. I was taught that even though your floor was dirt, you carefully brushed it clean each day, and even though you had no shoes, you washed your feet every night." Stories of dispair and triumph, poetry and a lifetime of writing because Adelle Bradford could not help it . .  . "as I attempt to paint my 'mind pictures' in words for others to see."
	A girl-child grows up and out of The Great Depression. Where to begin this story? Almost any place would do, but people like real beginnings and endings, so the year 1929 is as good a place as any. That was the year that a little girl's love affair with animals began. The child, almost by osmosis, soaked up values, ideals, concepts, and a philosophy of life, along with an ability to observe, understand, respect, and sometimes love every living thing. And, just as her father showed her that each duck had a distinct, individual personality, reasoning power, and the ability to communicate with anyone who understands 'duckese', he also taught her about death and its necessity if life is to continue. This is a difficult lesson for anyone, but a lesson everyone must eventually learn and come to terms with, no matter how hard and hurting they find it. Life is not only ful of beginnings; it is also full of endings.
	Most human beings have their own private places, places to hide, places to conceal their most tender feelings, places to dream, cry, nurse wounds and heal, undisturbed by casual public scrutiny, uncaring passersby. I visualize my private place as a big, leafy-green bramble bush, full of protective thorns. These thorns are long and sharp, to be sure, but they are not poisonous. They are there to protect my private place and keep intruders away - - unless I decide to invite them in - - and they do provide safe, secure perches for visitors . . . like you. " I think of my life as a book. It has a beginning and an end, with a finite number of pages in between. Across the years, there have been certain moments, certain feelings and moods, certain experiences and observations, certain days - - good and bad - - that linger in memory, bookmarks in a commonplace life. I am not an artist but I try to paint my sketches and pictures with words, brush stroke word by brush stroke word."
	History Lost - A Photo Journey A private printing for family members Daughter Grandchildren Great Grandchildren 1914 - 1986
	This book is written for small business owners, not-so-small business owners, and all levels of management and supervisory personnel. It is not intended to be an expert's "how to fix it" manual, or a detail-oriented, technically-learned textbook. Rather, it is presented as a series of short, down-to-earth articles discussing various sometimes-overlooked aspects of management problems faced in day-to-day business operations out there in the real world where every unsolved problem, no matter how small, has a negative effect on bottom line figures. Unfortunately, playing ostrich and hoping some of these small "business bugs" will simply wander away without biting you in the nether portions of your anatomy simply doesn't work. They don't go away, they just hang around and grow until they're big enough to forcibly yank your head out of the sand and demand attention.
	Delving into the mind of this extraordinary woman, this book displays a myriad and variety of personal writings and letters, poems, science fiction short stories and observations on life, here in the USA and in Germany. "Have you ever given any thought to how life seems to arrange itself like a battlefield? We struggle to get born and get that first life-giving breath, and it seems like every day from then on we continue to struggle for one reason or another on one battle front or another. If you have struggled to make your way into an elite, tightly-knit group, and struggled to establish some sort of acceptance, rank status, and respect from the members of that group, who would- -on an issue of morality, of basic right and wrong, of honor- -be willing to risk and jeopardize that which he or she has struggled so hard to obtain by speaking out on a clear and obvious wrong being committed? Examine the issues in this book and wonder if some of us will ever find the answer."
	A Novel Six young people came to the conclusion that the whole world was heading for disaster. The government was no longer anything vaguely resembling the picture most people had of it. The bureaucratic empire-¬builders, the special interest groups, the politicians themselves, for the most part, cared little about those people they supposedly represented and this was slowly becoming something entirely different, a kind of government of itself, by itself, for itself, self-protecting and self-perpetuating. But huge cracks were forming in its foundations. Overpopulation was rapidly proving old man Malthus to be correct in his doctrine that a finite object like the earth could not feed an infinite population. Instead of living, breeding, and dying in their mud huts and tin shacks without once ever questioning the way things were, they were shown all the marvels and wonders of flush toilets, the pleasure of a full belly, the power of a dollar, and, quite reasonably, they wanted it for themselves and their children.

Recently, I was thinking about the writing process in general, and that, in turn, led me back down a narrow but distinct path to my early letter-writing experiences, something quite different from learning to write your own name and various spelling words. I do believe that it was at that time I came to full realization that you could actually tell all the lies you wanted, make up all the stories you wanted, in a letter...or a note. I got just such a crumpled and stained note saying "I love you," from a little boy when I was in the first grade. He lied. He didn't love me at all.

In thinking about that, it struck me how very uncomplicated things were then, particularly our use of language. All we did was simply and clearly communicate in as few words as possible without wrapping our meaning up in layered packages decorated with all the bells and whistles of linguistic obfuscation we have come to expect, not only from ourselves, but from everyone else in the bargain.

Now that I'm older- -much older- -I sometimes find the idea tempting to go back to that original basic style and eliminate all those colorful adjectives, adverbs, modifiers...all those grammatical nuances that sometimes get in the way of what I really want to say. However, most adults find that style of writing stark and boring because we have learned to expect to be entertained while being enlightened or mentally or emotionally stimulated by what we read. And I am speaking here of writing that goes somewhat beyond the ingredient list on the label of a jar of mayonnaise.

So, writers write (or attempt to write), in a style that fills- -however successfully- -all of the above requirements, even when writing for themselves as I am now.

Consider this:

"John is the hero. Jane is the heroine. They hate each other. A dragon eats John's horse. John gets mad. The dragon tries to eat Jane. John kills the dragon. John and Jane kiss. They fall in love. They ride away on Jane's horse. The end."

Whether you got excited and emotionally involved with this epic saga or not, please understand that it IS, indeed, a story. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. It has major and minor characters (John, Jane, the dragon, and two horses), and it has emotional as well as physical conflict. It has action, thrills, adventure, danger, and romance. It has a clearly-defined plot. It builds to a climax, and is resolved at the end.

Think of most of the stories you have ever read. No matter the subject, no matter the content, somewhere, somehow, in some proportion, it has all the above-described characteristics. A good writer is usually able to conceal this skeleton framework within the full-fleshed body of of his story, leaving the reader aware of the story, not the structure upon which it is built.

How does he do this? With words, with all the visually and emotionally evocative linguistic bells and whistles he has in his vocabulary, and all the writing skills at his command.

But, oh, how simple and wonderful it would be to just write:

"John is the hero (reader, create him for yourself). Jane is the heroine (reader, create her for yourself). They hate each other (reader, provide your own reasons for this, and imagine all of the wonderful confrontations they must have had). A dragon eats John's horse (reader, imagine how this came about). John gets mad (as anyone would if a dragon ate their horse). The dragon tries to eat Jane (just how big and hungry was this dragon, anyway?) John kills the dragon (of course he does). John and Jane kiss (of course they do). They fall in love (of course they do). They ride away on Jane's horse (of course they do because the dragon ate John's horse, remember?). The end (of course it is...unless you intend to write a sequel)."

Hmmm. "Jane's horse was swaybacked. Two people were one too many. Jane's horse fell down. Jane blamed John. John yelled at Jane. An ogre heard them....."

Waldwimmersbach, Germany